In 1933, the new Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC) purchased the CNR's radio operations. Call letters changed soon after: CNRV Vancouver become CRCV on April 16th.

In 1959, Cecil Elphicke died. His brother, Frank "Tiny", died on May 26th of the same year. They had co-founded CKPG Prince George, which was licensed in November 1944, and signed on at 5:00 p.m. on February 8, 1946. Best known for his time at CKWX Vancouver, his CCF bio can be seen at http://broadcasting-history.ca/personal ... frank-tiny

In 1970, CBXFT Edmonton signed on, sharing its broadcast week between 60 hours of Radio-Canada (CBC French), tape delayed from Montreal by two weeks, and the English language Metropolitan Edmonton Education Television Association (MEETA), which leased 40 hours per week of air time. On July 1, 1973, CBXFT was connected to the Radio-Canada network, with programming live or tape delayed by hours instead of weeks. At the same time, MEETA's English language programming was dropped.

In 1978, All News CKO-FM-6 Edmonton first signed on. Seven weeks later, the CRTC authorized a frequency change, power increase and transmitter move, to 101.9 MHz with 100,000 watts. It was the beginning of the end for local programming in 1980 after a "life-saving" deal with Allarco (Dr. Charles Allard) was turned down by the CRTC because it included the broadcast of a limited amount of music. Eventually, CKO became a simulcast network from Toronto, until, on November 10, 1989, all the stations signed off forever.

In 1980, CJAZ-FM Vancouver signed on as Canada's first all Jazz station. It was owned by CKWX (Selkirk Broadcasting). The transmitter was on Saltspring Island on 92.1 MHz.

In 1981, CKPG Prince George signed on an FM station, CIOI-FM on 101.3 MHz with 900 watts, as Country 101. The call letters were an optical illusion for the frequency: C-101.

In 1993, CHUM swapped formats between its two AM stations in Windsor, Ontario. CKLW became News-Talk. And CKWW became adult standards. CHUM had taken ownership of CKLW AM & FM just two weeks earlier.

In 2002, CJVR-FM Melfort, Saskatchewan, signed on to 105.1 MHz with 100,000 watts. CJVR-AM had been granted a new FM license the previous December, but chose instead to move CJVR-AM's identity, including its Country music format, to FM. And rebrand the AM as CKJH, playing Oldies and Classic Rock. Several rebroadcast transmitters were added to help provide CJVR-FM with coverage into areas where CJVR-AM had listeners, but were unable to receive the Melfort FM signal.

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Vancouver radio history was made 40 years ago this weekend.

On March 1, 1980, CJAZ, billed as Canada’s first all-jazz radio station, signed on at 92.1 FM. The concept came from Selkirk Communications, which in those days owned both CKWX 1130 (later NEWS 1130) and CJAZ. “It was [General Manager Tom Peacock]’s baby. It was his idea,” remembers Ted Farr, who was the program director of both CJAZ and ‘WX.

“It was quite a while in the planning,” remembers retired newsman Campbell McCubbin, who, along with Julie Markus, co-hosted the station’s first morning show, the appropriately-named This AM on FM. “I think they looked at it and thought, ‘This would be a great idea.’ It certainly wasn’t being serviced in the market. It was pretty popular in Seattle. That basically wraps it up.”

“I remember the night we went on the air. Tom Peacock gathered the entire staff at a hotel two blocks down the road,” McCubbin recalls. CJAZ signed on at midnight with Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage. “And so, when that came on, everybody toasted with champagne and then I had to get up and go to work that next morning,” he explains. “And we cranked out a ton of information, a ton of interviews. During the one year that I hosted the thing, we interviewed everyone, literally everyone, from the Dalai Lama to Marilyn Chambers.”

“It’s just unfortunate the transmitter site that they chose was less than adequate,” McCubbin adds. “For a format like soft jazz or smooth jazz or regular, ordinary jazz, you know, you at least want to get into the West End. And it never really got sufficient coverage.”

Indeed, while CJAZ did pump 100,000 watts from its transmitter on Salt Spring Island, poor stereo reception in its target listening area of Metro Vancouver would eventually lead to a change in its transmitter location and its frequency. “By the time they got around to actually moving it up to Mount Seymour, where it should have been in the first place, they were really behind in terms of listenership,” he admits.

McCubbin also remembers some pretty restrictive license requirements. “In order to get an FM license back then, the CRTC had an incredibly high, what they called, foreground programming content requirement, which was information programming, basically. And within that requirement, anything less than a 15 minute interview didn’t qualify as foreground programming, which meant, we were playing, maybe, if we were lucky, two pieces of music an hour.” The federal regulator also required any new radio station to keep its format for five years before it could try another.

One year in, Ted Farr was brought in at Program Director. He doesn’t remember the license requirements or signal strength being the issue so much as the station having a hard time defining itself. “There were so many camps of people who liked this version of jazz or that genre of jazz. You couldn’t get two people to agree. You’d play a song on the air, somebody would phone up and complain about it, saying ‘That’s rock ‘n’ roll, that’s not jazz,'” he says. “The issues that we faced in those days were primarily that nobody could agree on what constituted jazz, the format was so fractured. So, even the among the staff, we had people who were in different camps.”

By 1984, CJAZ had rebranded to FM97 on-air and then fully to the soft-rock KISS-FM in 1985. The “playing what we want” JACK 96.9 branding came much later, in 2002. While CJAZ would go on to be much more successful in its later incarnations, its place in Canadian radio history shouldn’t be forgotten.

“You know, it was a great experience, and a great learning experience for just about everybody who initially were to tune in and learn all about the music we were playing,” says McCubbin. “So, I have very happy memories and I’m sure everybody else does too.”

jon wrote:In 1978, All News CKO-FM-6 Edmonton first signed on. Seven weeks later, the CRTC authorized a frequency change, power increase and transmitter move, to 101.9 MHz with 100,000 watts. It was the beginning of the end for local programming in 1980 after a "life-saving" deal with Allarco (Dr. Charles Allard) was turned down by the CRTC because it included the broadcast of a limited amount of music. Eventually, CKO became a simulcast network from Toronto, until, on November 10, 1989, all the stations signed off forever.

I don't know how much local programming came out of Edmonton at the end, but CKO was decidedly not a "simulcast network from Toronto." The network originated out of Vancouver from 2 p.m. to midnight (Pacific time) from some time in 1986 until everything shut down.

What happened was after the Allarco bid was turned down (Allard wanted to run music and information breaks from midnight to 6), the head office reduced the staff at each of the stations outside Toronto to one body in August 1980 with the exception of London, which had no one, and Vancouver, which ended up with a small staff doing daytime newscasts because it had sales contracts to honour. Vancouver re-opened its newsroom in January 1982. Operations in other cities expanded later.